When Riverlife celebrated its 10^th anniversary last year, it also celebrated completing 75 percent of what has become known as Three Rivers Park, the 13-mile stretch surrounding Downtown Pittsburgh and the confluence of the three rivers. The milestone marked a handful of major projects, all of which are either open or opening:

 

Point State Park is undergoing a $40 million renovation led by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. The Point had been badly damaged and overused by events, while being underused on a daily basis and disconnected from the city. The project included restoring all pathways and landscapes, adding new promenades and festival grounds and the soon-to-be completed refurbishing of the fountain and connection of the Point with the Mon Wharf.

 

The Mon Wharf landing and trail opened last year, and the switchback is now in planning and design and is half funded.

 

At Three Rivers Casino, a major, publicly accessible water park, with amphitheater, water landing, public promenade and trails have been installed. 

 

At South Side Works, another riverfront project opens this summer, connecting the Hot Metal Bridge Trail to the South Side Riverfront Trail. The project also includes a tiered park that connects South Side Works – 30 feet above the Monongahela River – with the river and features a performance amphitheater and ultra modern tent structure.  

 

Finally, the Convention Center Riverfront Plaza opened in May, connecting both the convention center with the river and Point State Park with the Strip District.

 

Riverlife played a key role in each of the five projects: as partner with the Commonwealth at Point State Park; lead design and developer on the Mon Wharf; design partner at Three Rivers Casino; partner with the Urban Redevelopment Authority and the Soffer organization at South Side Works; and helping with design and fundraising with the Sports and Exhibition Authority at the Convention Center.

 

“We play the role that’s needed but that’s not being filled,” said Riverlife executive director Lisa Schroeder. “Riverlife’s mission is primarily executing the vision for Pittsburgh’s riverfronts – to create Three Rivers Park. We collaborate with numerous groups -- we’re all working together, more and more closely all the time.”

 

Schroeder said The Pittsburgh Foundation “has provided the most valuable kind of support – helping us to build capacity at the staff level. They’ve been among Riverlife’s strongest supporters, both financially and spiritually. Grant Oliphant was one of the original participants in Riverlife, penning its mission when he was at the Heinz Endowments, and he’s currently chairman of Riverlife.”

 

For Schroeder and the Riverlife team, the focus is now on reaching a new benchmark for its second decade – creating landscapes that not only appear green but that actually restore habitat and riparian ecology, capturing and cleaning water that ultimately flows into the rivers.

 

Riverlife is moving into two future areas. The first is the Headwaters Lagoon project on the Ohio River, a nine-acre space including the Carnegie Science Center on one side and Three Rivers Casino on the other. “We’re creating an outdoor eco park with a lagoon and a spectacular fountain that cleans the water,” Schroeder said. “It will be a new public destination that will surround the water with activities and places for families to visit, including paddleboats, kayaks and, possibly, cafes.”

 

The other is the Allegheny River riverfront project, a three-way partnership with the Urban Redevelopment Authority, the Allegheny Valley Railroad and Riverlife.  In an extremely competitive process, the partners won federal funding that, along with a smaller, local match, is supporting the planning for a multi-use, green corridor, including a transit/rail component, riverfront parks and trails. The plan is to create a transit-oriented development/neighborhood mainly on a 6.5-mile stretch of the south side of the Allegheny, from 11^th Street to the Highland Park dam. Much of the land is warehousing, the city tow pound and parking, and, as Schroeder said, “we’re trying to find higher and better uses.

 

“These are the two areas we have yet to tackle in Three Rivers Park. With the Headwaters Lagoon, there’s no reason to believe we can’t complete it in a decade. With the Allegheny River project, there are lots of places where the investment is already taking place – Lawrenceville and the Strip. So the time is right to lay out the green and transportation plans to help that along. We’re capitalizing on a very uniquely Pittsburgh environment.”